论文标题
与PET/CT图像的头颈部分割和预后进行分割和预后的关节NNU-NET和放射线方法
Joint nnU-Net and Radiomics Approaches for Segmentation and Prognosis of Head and Neck Cancers with PET/CT images
论文作者
论文摘要
头颈癌(HNC)肿瘤和淋巴结的自动分割在优化治疗策略和预后分析中起着至关重要的作用。这项研究旨在利用多中心HNC队列中的预处理PET/CT图像采用NNU-NET进行自动分割和放射组学进行无复发生存(RFS)预测。在Hecktor 2022中提供了一个具有883例患者(524例培训患者,359例)患者的多中心HNC数据集。为每个固定尺寸的固定大小的患者取回了一个扩展口咽区域的边界盒。然后,将3D NNU-NET结构采用用于同步的原发性肿瘤和淋巴结的自动分割。基于预测的分割,为每位患者提取了十个常规特征和346个标准化的放射线特征。仅构建了三个仅包含常规和放射线特征的预后模型,并通过多元COXPH建模组合。探索了统计统一方法,以减少多中心变化。骰子评分和C指数分别用作分割和预后任务的评估指标。对于分割任务,我们通过3D NNU-NET获得了原发性肿瘤和淋巴结的平均骰子得分。对于预后任务,常规和放射线学模型在测试集中分别获得了0.658和0.645的C索引,而组合模型并未以0.648的C-索引提高预后性能。
Automatic segmentation of head and neck cancer (HNC) tumors and lymph nodes plays a crucial role in the optimization treatment strategy and prognosis analysis. This study aims to employ nnU-Net for automatic segmentation and radiomics for recurrence-free survival (RFS) prediction using pretreatment PET/CT images in multi-center HNC cohort. A multi-center HNC dataset with 883 patients (524 patients for training, 359 for testing) was provided in HECKTOR 2022. A bounding box of the extended oropharyngeal region was retrieved for each patient with fixed size of 224 x 224 x 224 $mm^{3}$. Then 3D nnU-Net architecture was adopted to automatic segmentation of primary tumor and lymph nodes synchronously.Based on predicted segmentation, ten conventional features and 346 standardized radiomics features were extracted for each patient. Three prognostic models were constructed containing conventional and radiomics features alone, and their combinations by multivariate CoxPH modelling. The statistical harmonization method, ComBat, was explored towards reducing multicenter variations. Dice score and C-index were used as evaluation metrics for segmentation and prognosis task, respectively. For segmentation task, we achieved mean dice score around 0.701 for primary tumor and lymph nodes by 3D nnU-Net. For prognostic task, conventional and radiomics models obtained the C-index of 0.658 and 0.645 in the test set, respectively, while the combined model did not improve the prognostic performance with the C-index of 0.648.